Farmer's body found by son after bull attack
THE son of a farmer who was gored to death by a bull, yesterday described the moment he discovered his father's lifeless body lying in a field near the family home.
Sixty-year-old John Tallon suffered horrific injuries when he was attacked by the Charolais bull on his farm near Lurgan.
He had been refilling a livestock feeder in the field off Barton’s Bay Road when the animal set on him in June.
His son Eamon told an inquest hearing in Armagh courthouse that he had gone looking for his father when he failed to return to his home on Derrymore Road, Gawley’s Gate.
After checking land all over the farm, he found his father’s body lying close to the feeder in the field in which the two-year-old bull was kept along with 17 other cows and calves.
“I saw my father lying there motionless,” he said.
“He appeared to have bad injuries to his face, his legs and his chest.”
Mr Tallon told coroner Brian Sherrard that he had frantically attempted to revive his father using CPR but he was already dead.
The life-long farmer had sustained fractures to all of his ribs, his spine and pelvis and sustained trauma to many of his major organs.
The inquest was told he had grass marks on his legs consistent with being dragged across the ground.
Mr Sherrard asked his son whether his father had previously expressed concerns about the bull.
“No more than any other bull,” he replied.
“When you’re working with a bull you just have to be careful.”
The farmer’s wife, Geraldine Tallon, said she had become worried when her husband of 35 years had not come back after going to see the livestock.
“He told me he was going to check the cattle,” she said.
The incident was subsequently passed to the Health and Safety Executive to investigate.
HSE official Camilla Mackey said the bull still appeared agitated in the wake of the attack.
She said the carcass of a cow was lying nearby and the death of this animal – combined with the hot and humid weather and the fact all the other cows had already been inseminated – may have contributed to the bull’s volatile temperament.
“The dead cow in the corner of the field may have made the bull more agitated,” she said.
The cow appeared to have died on the afternoon of the attack because at some point before he was mauled Mr Tallon had called the vet to report a sick animal.
The bull was shot dead by police marksmen later that evening.
Ms Mackey said HSE advice to farmers working with potentially dangerous animals was to work in pairs, use a dog and bring a vehicle into the field.
“The vehicle can act as a refuge if a problem occurs,” she explained.
Mr Sherrard said it was clear the farmer, who was otherwise in good health, would have died rapidly.
“I hope that’s some form of comfort for the family circle,” he said.
“There would have been no lingering, it would have been a sudden death.”
Finding the cause of death as multiple injuries sustained in an attack by a bull, the coroner paid tribute to a man he described as “a much-loved husband and father”.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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